Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="John Anthony, post: 2411134, member: 42773"]I'm glad you feel cleared up. Unfortunately, when you look into Datames and Pharnabazos, you may feel muddy again. It's not always clear who these men were and what they accomplished or even where they governed. From Historia XLVII/1 (1998)... "Datames was an extraordinary Persian leader whose political and military abilities were such that Greek and Roman writers preserved many of his achievements and stratagems. Yet the satrapy over which Datames ruled remains a puzzle. There are multiple reasons for this. The literary evidence appears to be contradictory: Diodorus reported Cappadocia; Nepos, Cilicia. Even the unusual coins struck under Datames' authority in Cilicia do not constitute conclusive evidence that this was his official satrapy. It is a fact that prior to Datames other Persian generals whose satrapies were located elsewhere were given royal sanction to issue coins under their own names at the Cilician mints while they commanded expeditions in the eastern Mediterranean which drew heavily on Cilicia for food and military supplies." This quote comes from J. Daniel Bing's Datames and Mazaeus: The Iconography of Revolt and Restoration in Cilicia. The author's thesis, however (which he argues convincingly in my opinion), is that Datames was in fact governor of Cilicia.[/QUOTE]